Ten seconds remained at Mohegan Sun Arena Saturday, and with the clock stopped, Asjha Jones collapsed into teammate Tamika Raymond, the look upon Jones’ face one of pure relief.

Moments earlier, she barely tipped a rebound away from New York’s Shameka Christon, saving the Connecticut Sun from allowing a potential game-tying lay-up.

“You know when you make a mistake and it can cost you the game, and in the last moment, you kind of cover it up a little bit?” Jones asked.

Yes, the Sun do. And they lived to tell about it.

Ahead by as many as 15 points, the second-seeded Sun withstood a fourth-quarter 3-point barrage by the Liberty and rode their late-game hustle plays to a 73-70 Game 2 victory in front of 7,234.

“I guess we didn’t like prosperity,” joked Sun coach Mike Thibault, whose team avoided elimination to tie this first-round, best-of-three series, 1-1, and force a decisive Game 3 to be played here at 7 p.m. Monday.

The third-seeded Liberty hit six 3s in a span of 6 minutes, 27 seconds in the final quarter — and 13 for the game — whittling a 13-point deficit down to one with 1:20 to play before missing three from long range in the final minute.

The Sun, meanwhile, helped offset a horrid 2-for-15 showing in the final 10 minutes with nine offensive rebounds, including three on one series that led to a jump ball and Jones’ eventual game-winning 15-foot jumper with 1:44 to play.

Near collapse

The Sun played nearly flawless ball to that point, riding a hot start and an aggressive defense to a 62-49 lead after three quarters. Then, they avoided a collapse similar to that of last year’s Game 3, first-round loss in Indiana, when they gave up a 22-point lead.

“It’s a win. In the playoffs, it don’t matter,” Barbara Turner said. “But we made this game a lot more difficult than it should have been. We had it at a point where we really could have opened the game up and won by 15 or 20 points. But New York is relentless and they have players who can step up and make big shots. And they did it, but more importantly, we got the loose balls and did the little things we needed to do to win.”

Jones scored a team-high 16 points two days after shooting 4-of-13 in the Sun’s 72-63 Game 1 loss in New York, and Lindsay Whalen added 15 with five rebounds and four assists. But perhaps no one bigger was Svetlana Abrosimova, who scored 12 points in replacing Amber Holt in the starting lineup and was the catalyst of the Sun’s offense early.

Connecticut made its first six shots of the game, and set a tone with aggressive defensive play that led to 20 New York turnovers. It couldn’t have played any different from Thursday’s loss, when it never led and shot 37.5 percent.

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It actually shot worse Saturday (36.9 percent), but that number was largely because of the fourth quarter, when it seemed like it went forever without a field goal. Its first one didn’t come until there was 3:58 left on the clock.

“It just didn’t seem like that, it was forever,” Thibault said. “I thought we hurried, we had some turnovers that were crucial. We had a long stretch without them and then we had a couple really bad ones in a row there. We missed three point-blank lay-ups that I was pretty sure we got fouled on one of them … but I guess with my eye sight, these glasses don’t work too well. But you gotta make them.”

Compounding matters were Cathrine Kraayeveld and New York. The forward sandwiched three 3s in the span of four minutes around three more from Loree Moore (16 points) and Christon (11 points) to nearly catapult New York into the Eastern Conference finals.

Nearly.

Christon missed a 3 with 32.9 seconds left, and after Tamika Whitmore hit one of two free throws, Erin Thorn missed from the left wing with 16.9 seconds to play. Jones tipped the rebound away from Christon and to Abrosimova, who then passed to Whitmore. After being fouled, the veteran forward again made one of two, but closed out on Janel McCarville in the left corner to tip her 3-point attempt at the buzzer.

“We live to fight another day,” Whitmore said. “We’ll see them Monday.”